Letters to the editor, March 23

Updated 8:12 pm, Friday, March 21, 2014

A pair of ground squirrels perch on rocks along the shore at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014. City officials plan to reduce the squirrel population at the popular bayside park, who's numbers are out of control. less

A pair of ground squirrels perch on rocks along the shore at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014. City officials plan to reduce the squirrel population at the popular bayside park, ... more

The excellent Carolyn Jones article of March 14 on squirrels and gophers in Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley ("Deletion of 81,000 e-mails on saving squirrels a 'mistake,' " March 14) reminds me of an intriguing dilemma regarding their grand cousins in my home state of Montana.

It seems beavers moved in on and felled some ancient cottonwood trees that had been shading picnic grounds and a boating dock on a large river reservoir. A few fast-on-the-draw fellows proposed "deleting" the beavers, but some good-willed fishermen caught and transplanted the water critters far across the lake and upstream. Naturally, a few days later, the beavers had swum back and were flagging their gnawed intentions on the bottom trunks of some of the few remaining huge cottonwoods, preparing them for felling.

What to do? Some good-thinking guys merely put thick wire sleeves around the bases of the precious cottonwoods. But what about the beaver cousins? Current thinking appears to be simple recognition that beavers are not only busy, but exceptionally ingenious and invaluable. Let them be.

Column brings back our glory days

A bull's-eye, target and spot-on is Robert Reich's Sunday article in Insight, "Worth the effort to recall what U.S. once achieved" (Insight, March 16).

The article resembles the story of my life. Graduated from Polytechnic High School, and the next week I was hired by PG&E into their engineering department for some 55 years. Yes, it took a boy who worked his way through high school, married at 19, only three years to purchase a brand-new home on his own with the help of the Federal Housing Administration.

I remember voting for the two great presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, and my family benefited from all their great achievements. With Eisenhower, freedom and his national highway system and with our big eight-cylinder, nine-passenger station wagons, my family traveled the road through many states.

With Reagan, the American way of life with his love of country, the Republic, capitalism and in the "God we trust."

Today, the schools are not what they were when my wife and I attended, and by our daughter's time, they did not want to attend, and today, our grandchildren will never have what we and our daughter had in our time.

Saunders doesn't get it - courts do

I laud The Chronicle for giving space to Debra J. Saunders, whose editorial comments often seem more appropriate in a Bible Belt state than in progressive San Francisco, but I had to respond to the backward views she expressed in "Affordable Care Act - or war on conscience?"

She argues that billionaire David Green's company Hobby Lobby should be allowed to deny certain types of contraceptive coverage like RU-486, because of his "deeply held beliefs."

She asks, "Why not exempt employers for issues of conscience?" It is a very basic principle in this country that one's religious freedoms end when they impinge on the rights or health of others who may or may not share those beliefs. Fortunately, our courts have a history of understanding this principle.

On bosses' beliefs

Debra J. Saunders' Sunday column "Affordable Care Act - or war on conscience?" (Insight, March 16) is supportive of Hobby Lobby's deeply held beliefs to omit abortion-causing drugs in health care coverage to their employees.

In their war against Obamacare, Republicans want to expand the religious liberties of employers to trump those of employees in determining the extent of their health care coverage.

I worry that an employer would be able to omit coverage for health care specific to the needs of LGBTs if their employer's deeply held belief is also deeply homophobic. Using Saunders' definition of religious liberty, as an employer I should have the right to determine my employees' health care coverage, and I could deny health coverage for obesity, alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases or any other illness depending on my deeply held beliefs.

'A drop in the bucket'

Yet another call for drastic reductions in residential use of water as a means of stretching our supply ("A drop in the bucket could add up for state," Insight, March 16).

Of course, conserving water is an important thing to do, especially during a drought, but urban uses account for only about 11 percent of the total. A cut of 20 percent would result in a net saving of only around 2 per cent, which given the extent of the problem, really is only "a drop in the bucket."